Gainesville woman charged with shoplifting and trying to smuggle a canister into the jail inside her body

Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Alexis Tanae Howard, 26, was arrested yesterday for shoplifting and was later charged with introducing contraband into the jail after an object was seen in her genital area on the jail X-ray scanner and she was transported to the hospital to remove it.

At about 4:56 p.m. on May 8, a Gainesville Police Department officer responded to the northwest Walmart (5700 NW 23rd Street), where a Loss Prevention Officer (LPO) said she had Howard in custody after watching her steal 141 items worth $1,006.16 from the store and walk out without paying.

The LPO said she had followed Howard around the store and watched her place items in the cart and then stopped her when she tried to exit through the Garden Center.

Post Miranda, Howard reportedly said she had paid for the items on a previous trip to the store, and her mother and friends brought the items to the store for her to return. The LPO noted that Howard did not have a receipt for the items and never went to the customer service desk to return them.

When Howard was in the officer’s patrol car, he let her talk to her mother on the phone, and he reported that Howard’s mother told him she never went to Walmart and never gave any items to Howard to return.

At the jail, staff patted Howard down and reportedly felt an item inside her bra. Howard reportedly said it was a “medical port.” Staff reported that while providing a urine sample, Howard moved “excessively… as if she was concealing something,” and after she came out of the bathroom, the object in her bra was no longer there. When Howard was placed in the X-ray scanner, the scanner showed a round object in her genital area and no abnormalities where she said the medical port would be.

Howard reportedly said she didn’t have anything inside her body, so the police officer transported her to an emergency room, where additional X-rays confirmed there was an object inside her body and medical staff tried to persuade Howard to remove it. Howard reportedly continued to deny there was anything there, but after about two hours, she agreed to remove it in the presence of a nurse. A nurse reportedly watched Howard squat down and remove an object from a bodily cavity (the report notes that the specific bodily cavity is unknown), and then Howard asked the nurse for wipes.

The nurse reportedly asked her why she needed wipes and refused to give them to her, but Howard allegedly took wipes from the wall in the room, and the nurse heard a metallic sound. When the nurse asked Howard what she was doing, Howard reportedly said she was wiping the inside of the metal container, and the nurse took the container and gave it to the police officer. The officer reported that the container was about three inches in height and about one inch in width and appeared to have been wiped clean, with no residue.

The officer noted, “Based on my training and experience, any subject who goes through the effort of placing items inside their body in an attempt to conceal anything from [law enforcement] is doing so in an attempt to hide evidentiary item(s). Furthermore, [Howard’s] actions of wiping the container exhibited the behavior of someone who is attempting to conceal, alter, or destroy evidence while simultaneously denying to [law enforcement] that an object was ever concealed inside her person.”

Back at the jail, staff reportedly found an alprazolam pill inside her bra, and Howard reportedly said she did not know how it got there; she reportedly said she believed it was Xanax.

Howard has been charged with grand theft, tampering with evidence, possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, and introducing contraband into a detention facility. She has no criminal convictions; Judge Kristine Van Vorst set bail at $40,000.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.